Diet and exercise apps are plentiful, but the winner of the final business contest in the first PowerMoves.NOLA minority entrepreneurship festival on Saturday (July 5) said her entry in the genre distinguishes itself with social media and product sponsorship rewards. The digital fitness tool called Nexercise won $25,000 from a panel of judges, which will pay for filling in technology behind parts of the application and promoting the service.

Olubunmi "Boomie" Odumade, the co-founder and vice president of engineering, said rather than competing with other fitness products, Nexercise works in conjunction with many of them but uses support from users' social media connections and products contributed by sponsors as motivators.

Even when people don't reach their weight loss goals, the service still issues product giveaways rewarding users for sticking to their efforts. Staying on track despite occasionally discouraging results is crucial to improving fitness, Odumade argued.

"It's been scientifically proven that 78 percent of us lack the motivation and willpower to be consistent," she told the judges in her pitch.

Odumade competed with three other entrepreneurs in the contest for women-owned businesses that was sponsored by Chevron and unfolded in the midst of the Essence Festival crowds at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

Nexercise is based in Washington, D.C., and like others who traveled to New Orleans for the inaugural PowerMoves festival, Odumade said the minority-themed event was heartening to see.

"There are not a lot of events geared to us being in tech," Odumade said about prevailing images and statistics showing few minorities working in technology fields. "Showcasing this shows that we do do this stuff."

PowerMoves organizers said they hope to increase minority representation in startup investing nationally and make New Orleans a center for that activity. Odumade said her company already has raised almost $1 million from investors.

The event Saturday also issued a $5,000 prize to an entrepreneur who won an audience vote, Delali Kpodzo, co-founder of We Are Onyx, an online fashion and cosmetics ordering service for black women based in Los Angeles.

"Marketers and beauty brands were not talking to us," Kpodzo told judges in explaining the need for such a service specifically for African American women.

Also pitching was Nichelle McCall, founder of Bold Guidance of Cleveland, a platform to help high school students manage college applications.

McCall said the neighborhood school where she grew up in Cleveland was classified as failing, so her mother worked three jobs to send her to a private school. Once there, she had access to counseling that helped her pursue college, a path she might otherwise have missed.

"They're not able to get that individual attention from counselors," McCall said about young people in high schools with one counselor for hundreds of students. Her service seeks to spread personalized counseling broadly.

And judges and the audience heard from Cheryl Contee of Attentive.ly in San Francisco, a service for helping companies create digital marketing campaigns tailored to individual viewers.

"Most brands are still sending generic blast emails that most people will never open," Contee said during her pitch. She said her firm is on track for $10 million in revenue by the end of this year.